A Wedding Beyond What We'd Dreamed

Our deepest thanks to those of you that documented our happiest day of our lives together thus far! We experienced the ceremony, dancing, company, children, flowers, blue skies, sun, fog rolling in with as much magic in our hearts as you can imagine. We are so blessed- thank you!

Visit David's Project Point Site for a re-direct to the various individual photo files as well as links to various Flickr photo galleries that our guests post. Site will be continuously updated as the visual goods come in!

Day after the wedding set on our Flickr.

Photo by Ana Santos-Restivo.

Love From Women

I have been at odds with the process of planning a wedding. Because of the scope wedding is a time to reach out and ask for help- both things I have never been comfortable with- it's just the way I am wired emotionally.

I have noticed in my life that in times of sadness and sorrow, those who support you gather around you. Now that I am explicitly living the opposite experience, it remarkable to me how many women have stepped out of the ether with offers of help and support.

On the surface, this will appear to be a wedding with no bridesmaids, but in my heart the list of those who are bolstering me up is long. In no particular order, I'd like to name and thank: Zoe, Mom, Aunt Deb, Theresa, Helen, Ana, Anna, Jeanette, Gina, Victoria, Elyse, Claire, Shira, Liz, Janet, Madeleine, Amy, Rhonda, Rosie for the nurturing and love you have offered in a multitude of ways.

Some of you I have known just a few years - our acquaitance is in its dawn; others, like my friend with Claire (shown above) I have known longer.

From age 1- 6, Claire and I shared the same babysitter in Newtonville, MA. Claire is a year older, so once kindergarten kicked in, we didn't attend the same grades but through about age 6, we continued to be cared for by Mrs. Dean and be friends. When I was 11, I moved away to live with my Dad in Rhode Island and I am not sure when Claire left Massachusetts- also to go live with her Dad in Brooklyn.

My adult memories of Claire ended with me being at her first wedding back in 1992- she and her new husband were moving to Lund, Sweden. And until about sometime in January 2005, that's all I knew of her. Over a decade later, I found her living 20 minutes drive from me, also in the San Francisco Bay Area- in Kensington- with a second husband and two daughters with the man I saw her marry.

On December 31, 2006 Claire and her new husband (also a David!) had a baby boy, Alexander. He will be the only newborn, so to speak, at the wedding.

I do promise when I have more time (post Sunday) that I will pull together a gallery of women who are with me and special to me- your friendships are precious.

For those of you attending the wedding, you will agree with me: after all these years, Claire looks just the same as above (I think I'm 5 or 6 in this picture?). She has not changed, she just has an adult body.

So for all of the women and for all women who do for other women- I humbly wish to say: Thank You.

What's With The 3:21 Ceremony Time?

It has occurred to me that many of you will have questions about what this is, or rather why. For those of you reading- you can spread the word to others who haven't visited the blog should there be chatter about it. Talk amongst yourselves folks. If you add up this time (3+2+1), it equals 6. In the 78 number Tarot system I've studied, there are 78 essences linked to 78 different cards. The 6 essence, is the Lovers card; it's one of what's known as the Major Arcana in traditional Tarot decks. It also happens to be linked to Gemini- which David is.

More important than the court cards Court Cards, Major Arcana, and Minor Arcana referenced in the above explanation of 78, are the suits which derived down to be those we know of modern day playing cards: pentacles (now diamonds), wands (now clubs), cups (now hearts) and swords (now spades).

So do I really think this ceremony will start right at 3:21. No, not really. Is it a nice to have- yes, but I'm just thankful our weather forecast looks so fantastic. In that vein, I must digress to a gradual reduction of the percentage of our blog in chance of rain.

Safe travels to those of you coming to the Bay Area. The thriving, budding feeling of spring is here for your pleasure and enjoyment.

Grapes Grown at a Crossroads

The Livermore Valley is not what we remembered from a couple of years back. Journeying out this weekend to go find some red to serve at the reception (tough job!) the landscape bursts with messages that this is one place where agriculture, nature and California's growing population are vying for space.

The wild turkeys I spotted running through the grapevines getting ready to start the 2007 crop wanted to get away from me fast. The natural landscape once consisted of prarie, chapparal and mixed oak and manzanita forests. Now, the oak trees share with cows and roads run through the lilting green (the reason we chose March for our wedding) hills. We didn't remember the large houses abutting Livermore Valley Cellars tasting room from the last time we visited- but they were directly abutting the vineyard now.

City girl that I am, I went right up to the corral across the street to go talk to a horse and a friendly dog. My skin immediately burst out in welts as a reaction to the stinging nettle that scratched my ankles. The horse wanted to be friendly but there was an electric fence inside so I threw home stray blades of green grass over the fence to her. Beautiful countryside, gorgeous horse- a little too well kept.

For one of the cases to be served in two weeks (!!) we contemplated choosing this 2005 Syrahnade (a syrah combined with a rosé). This wine has a high alcohol content and some dark toasty flavors I can't name. I do better naming scents than I do tastes. Wine idiot that I am, I asked why the bottles read "Sirah" and "Syrah," wondering if it was some vintner's typo. Petite sirah and syrah are in fact very different grapes. There are so many typos in the world now (especially from my own fingertips), you must understand how valid the question actually is!

There is a capacity for all of us to support our values for use of this land with our economic powers. Coming here to buy wine, we demonstrate that we favor agricultural use of land. If we'd bought a house here, especially one of these that abut LVC, we'd have grapes and horses in our front yard...along with a big country home. The hardest of the three options is choosing ways to demonstrate we want the prarie kept the way it is and letting the Pacific flyway continue to support wildlife. But there are options: Central Valley Joint Venture, Greenbelt Alliance.

Dedicated to Shelli Rose who helped me learn love and awareness for the Bay Area's greenbelt.

Can We Get A Witness?

We haven't yet figured out when the trip to City Hall will be, nevermind which city hall. According to Helen, we have our choice even if they're in different counties. That's right, the marriage license is falling to near the bottom of the list to do. After all, we're domestic partners, doesn't that count for anything?

In short, I've had a lifelong "fascination" for Harrison Ford. Do you think he might show up and be our witness if I put danishes on either side of my head as a hairdo?

Solves absolutely everything- pastry does!

Spice Rack Face

My girlfriend Anna is taking my face through an abbreviated "boot camp" to prepare for the wedding. My care regimen is longer than ever at night and in the morning, but the results have been worth the discipline. She only wishes we started 6 months ago...

Typically I come to see Anna's skin care salon for waxing- a far cry from the olfactory and tactile delight you experience from being bathed in lavender water with a warm washcloth, steamed, and cleansed with delicious and fragrant chamomile and lemon cleansers and massaged. And with hardly any attention my decolletage has also cleared up and improved as a result of the neck and shoulder massages.

Anna has brought the Ilike (Szep Elet), Peter Thomas Roth, and Christina of Israel product lines to bear on my troubled skin. Ilike in particular has products derived from rose, nettle, lemon- a feast for the skin. Most interesting is that Hungary, seems to be a seat of innovation in this type of product. Given what it says on the Szep Elet site about what exists in that part of the world, perhaps one of those Eastern European spas will be where David and I venture on our second leg of the honeymoon (we wanted to try to visit Slovakia and Slovenia anyway, the home my now passed father's parents came from at the turn of the century). Interstingly, Peter Thomas Roth himself is the child of Hugarian parents. This part of the world that seems to birth such wonderful innovation?

The organic, all natural movement has embraced not just our food chain (as we struggle to re-educate ourselves about where our food comes from). Thankfully, we're starting to put these efforts into products that touch our bodies. It's a strange fusion- we create tons of toxins and all these salves and potions to rid ourselves of them. What a world for our children this will be indeed! A couple of loops perhaps need closing, don't you think?

But the process hasn't been painless. To get my skin looking healthier, the journey has included some discomfort to help rid my skin of comedones. I've now had two intense facials with ingredients intended to stimulate circulation to my skin. The first was paprika layered with blended fruit pulps. Holy paprika Batman! Most recently, it was another Christina product containing capsicum combined with a blend of glycolic and salicylic acid. An Israeli product vs. Hungarian. Innovation has the darnedest ingredients! Having all this done makes me feel like the most pampered...skillet, cup of tea, or piece of raw meat.

The eternal quest to find out where the products that touch our skin come from and why they work so well. Hail the magic ingredients: sulfur and glycolic and salicylic acid.

Both photos by me. OK, OK. My face layered on the spice rack image. It has 57% opacity in Photoshop. Happy now? Pretty simple really.